


The Magic Hand Thing

by NiCad



Series: A New Way [4]
Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Injury, Force Healing, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-27
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:26:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23350150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NiCad/pseuds/NiCad
Summary: His father has always been a mix of light and dark. Both pulsed within him, a constant battle. But now, the battle is dying down, a war of attrition fizzling out with frightening speed. Drifting away from a body that had been abused several times too many.The child’s instincts to heal burn hot within him and he cries out because he doesn’t know what to fix first. These broken things are more complicated than what he has healed before and he sobs out of fear and frustration. The persistent motionlessness of his father in the face of his cries serve only to scare him further, so he throws caution to the wind, presses his tiny hands to the back of his father’s head, closes his eyes, and…
Series: A New Way [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1699135
Comments: 36
Kudos: 211





	The Magic Hand Thing

**Author's Note:**

> Picks up right at the end of the last episode of Season 1. Starts out grim and goes downhill from there, but I promise it ends well.
> 
> For Besa.

_Soaks my skin through to the bone  
Pain is nothing that a downpour won’t erase_

Delerium, [Flowers Become Screens](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsT-Bdx-Dek)

* * *

The stars blur to streaks before space and time turn to a ripple of blue and white outside the windscreen as Din pushes the Razor Crest into hyperspace.

He leans back, shoulders sagging.

He feels…

He feels awful.

His ribs ache.

His head pounds.

His shoulder isn’t quite right.

His back screams if he doesn’t sit just the right way.

He should be dead.

 _Would_ be dead, had he not yielded to IG-11’s logic on what is and what is not a living thing.

Kuiil is dead.

Kuiil is no longer a living thing.

Kuiil deserved so, so much better than this.

Din hears the kid chirp behind him and he swivels his chair around. Once again, he’s greeted by those huge brown eyes, placid, ears relaxed, still sucking on the Mythosaur pendant.

The pendant Din had worn at his own throat for close to thirty-five years.

He feels something tighten in his chest, and he honestly can’t tell if it’s affection for the kid chasing his anguish over Kuiil or if he’s finally having a heart attack.

The tightness fades. Affection, then.

That’s allowable.

Din realizes that, despite everything, he’s starving. He hasn’t eaten in almost two days. The kid must be hungry, too. He’d chowed down a fair portion of that lava goat or whatever the hell it was that Karga’s hunters had roasted, but Din figures that all of the sorcery the kid had pulled since then, between healing Karga and holding back the entire brunt of an Imperial flamethrower, must have burned up a fair number of calories.

Din gets up to warm up some soup for the kid. He staggers as soon as he’s out of the chair, grayness creeping in from the periphery of his vision, a high-pitched whine picking up in his head, and he sits himself back down in the port jump-seat, leaning over to put his head between his knees before he can pass out entirely. His ribs and back protest, but there’s not much else he can do.

The bacta had saved his life, but he still isn’t quite right. Getting flung around by Gideon’s TIE fighter hadn’t helped any.

He is nowhere near quite right.

He breathes through it and the whine fades. His vision returns. Mostly. His vision out of his left eye is still blurry, like something somewhere in the socket of his skull still isn’t quite the right shape to get it to focus properly.

But it beats the total blindness he’d had before out of that eye. So. Improvement.

He gets up again, slowly this time, and heads to the galley. A few minutes later, he has the kid in his lap at the table in the back of the hold while the tiny green bundle slurps his soup and gobbles up all of the chunks floating in it. Din struggles to keep his eyes open, and is glad that the same appears to be true for the baby. When the kid finishes the last bits, he heaves a tiny sigh and his eyes slip closed. Din puts him in his crate by the bunk and heads back up the ladder to get his own dinner.

The next thing he knows, he’s waking up on the floor of the galley. He doesn’t remember how he got there, but he can take a good guess.

The pounding in his head is worse. All he can see out of his left eye is a cloudy haze.

This isn’t good.

He’s still starving. He still has to eat. He gets his knees under his body, then his hands, then pushes himself up. A ration bar and some water are all he has the patience for. He pulls his helmet off and wishes he was still on the floor when he sees the inside of it.

It’s covered in his blood.

Some of it is fresh.

Yeah, this isn’t good at all.

He takes his gloves off and puts a tentative hand to the back of his head. Things are… sticky… back there, and it hurts like hell to touch it, so he pulls his hand away. Some blood is on his hand but not a terrible amount. He washes it off, pulls a ration bar out of the cabinet, takes a bite of bland protein, chases it with water. He stands there in the galley, feeling very much alone, feeling very much adrift, wondering how much of what he feels is real and how much is due to the concussion.

Not coming to any conclusions, he finishes up and heads down to the hold.

Getting down the ladder without missing any of the rungs is trickier than he expects.

He steps into the fresher with the intention of checking the dilation of his pupils in the mirror, but he gets distracted by the bloody mess of his face.

He looks almost as horrible as he feels.

The helmet usually does a decent job of protecting him. He doesn’t have much in the way of facial scars, nothing more than a few nicks from his pre-Creed scrapes as a kid. Ironically, the only noticeable oddity – the two patches on his jaw that remain bare in-between shaves – are a result of the helmet itself. A consequence of his jaw growing faster than the rest of his head when he was sixteen and chafing himself raw against the helmet before he could get it re-sized. Otherwise, the helmet has deflected all other assaults upon his face and head.

But beskar can only do so much.

He supposes an E-web cannon battery exploding in his face exceeded the helmet’s design specifications.

Even beyond the fact that he’s let his hair get too long and it’s wet and matted. That’s been more-or-less standard operating procedure since he’d taken on his tiny passenger and his alone-time without the helmet took a dive, so he hasn’t had a chance to cut it.

He’s never seen so much blood on his face.

Is his nose broken? He’s not sure. It’s the source of most of the blood. That and his mouth. A consequence of soft tissue getting smashed between the inside of his helmet and his skull and teeth. Splashing around in the helmet when he’d gotten thrown twenty feet in the air. A fair amount had come from his left ear, the source of a trail of red running down and around his neck.

He’s too exhausted for a shower. Doesn’t want to chance losing consciousness in there and managing to drown himself. Wouldn’t _that_ be a sight for salvaging Jawas? Instead, he runs the tap and splashes cold water on his face, rubs the worst of it off, careful of his nose, which is a little tender. It’s not enough, but it’s a little better.

His pupils are… reasonably symmetrical. The left might be a little blown. Hard to tell in the dim light.

He needs to sleep.

He shuffles out of the fresher and goes straight for the bunk. Doesn’t even bother taking his boots or armor off. Just crawls right in and collapses, letting out a long, guttural moan as his body finally goes horizontal on purpose. He has a brief moment of panic when his head spins a little, that disembodied sensation of turning on an axis at the center of his core, but it stops shortly. His face is a little numb, his fingers and toes tingle, and the rest of him still aches, so he hangs in that space between awake and asleep for longer than he would like, just laying there and hurting.

He and the kid are on their own again.

He’s starting from scratch, all over again.

And he has no idea where to go.

* * *

He doesn’t wake up until the Razor Crest drops out of hyperspace.

He feels… not better, but different. More rested, but his head and ribs feel worse. He slips the helmet back on and… yeah, that’s definitely worse. He extricates himself from the bunk and finds the kid just starting to wake up as well, grumbling and hungry.

It’s the first day of the rest of their lives, and Din’s head feels like it’s about to pop like a grape inside this helmet.

He picks up the kid, confirms that he won’t pass out when he stands up, and heads up to the galley to defrost a frog for the kid’s breakfast before settling into his seat on the flight deck.

He can’t believe he’s warming up dead frogs in his galley. One disbelief in a parade of many that march through his head that he just can’t get a handle on. But the frogs are a gift from Kuiil and rations are tight, so here they are. Din has just enough time to set the course vectors before there’s a ding from the galley. The kid squirms in his lap – he knows what’s up, so Din ducks out and, as far as he can tell, it’s warm all the way through. The baby’s eyes are huge and round as he reaches out with both hands and makes grabbing motions with his blunt little claws, so Din hands the frog over. It disappears into the baby’s mouth in a few moments, and the animal-like peristaltic humping motions the kid goes through to get it all down do wonders to suppress Din’s own appetite.

Ooohhhkaaayyy.

The kid lets out a belch that would’ve been adorable had it not smelled like dead frog.

 _I can do this_ , Din tells himself. _He stopped a mudhorn for me. The least I can do is hold him while he eats a damn frog_.

* * *

Din shuffles through the market, the kid snug in the bag IG-11 had blazed into town with him in a day or two ago. He’s just spent the last of his money on food. About five days worth of soup mix, meat, and veggies are in a second bag slung over his shoulder. The sun beats down on him as he heads back to the ship. The cooling system in his armor handles it, but the glare still hurts. Maybe he stumbles a little. He’s not sure. People give him a wide berth and cast wary looks, but that happens all the time anyway. He’s too far gone to tell if their reaction to him is any different than it normally would be.

He uses the stern ramp to get back onto the Crest. Its greater length makes the slope more forgiving. Even so, it’s all he can do to make it up. He gets the ship buttoned up, gets the groceries stowed, and gets back to hyperspace as soon as he can.

After only a few minutes, he drops the ship back out so they’re in the middle of nowhere. Empty space. Adrift. No one will find them here.

Eat and sleep. Until he gets better or the food runs out. That’s the plan.

That’s all he can manage.

He counts the small fortune that the kid is just as tired as he is and zonks out after a bowl of soup. Din puts him back in the crate, and pulls off all the armor for the first time since just before picking up Cara on Sorgan. The beskar is covered in soot, dirt, and blood, and will require attention soon. When he pulls his right pauldron off, his thumb catches over the mudhorn signet that is welded to it.

 _You are now a clan of two_.

He sinks down to sit on the edge of the bunk for a moment, closing his eyes as he processes this.

 _You are as its father_.

Elbows on his knees, he puts his helmeted head in his hands.

 _Father_.

The word makes his stomach turn. He knows nothing about being a father. There is a reason he’s gotten to his mid-forties without forming a clan of his own. He’s no good at the family thing. His inability to transition from his birth family to a Mandalorian clan as a foundling led to his placement in the Fighting Corps. Thus, he’s only good at one thing, and that thing is killing other people. The only reason the kid has survived Din’s care this long is through dumb luck and the kid’s own abilities.

In this moment, he feels Kuiil and Cara’s absences with sharp clarity, as if Kuiil’s death and Cara’s pre-emptive rejection to coming along have scooped something out of his soul. Inasmuch as Cara was clear about not doing the Baby Thing, that would have been moot if Kuiil had survived. If Kuiil could have just made it another few meters, if he could’ve just made it to the ship, then Kuiil could, right this minute, be doing the Baby Thing. Cara could be doing the Kick Ass and Take Names Thing. Din could be doing the Get in the Shower and Get the Blood Washed Off Thing.

The pauldron clatters to the floor.

God, his head hurts so much.

He finally gets himself into the shower. Watches as the blood and dirt swirl at his feet before going down the drain. Sees how much of his body has turned purple and green from the meatgrinder of Nevarro. He gets out, dries, brushes his teeth. His face looks a little better without being covered in blood. A little puffy. A little bruised.

He crawls back into the bunk, careful of his ribs and back, sinks down onto the thin mattress, takes a deep breath, and realizes he forgot to eat.

To hell with it. He’s too tired.

He slips into a dreamless sleep.

* * *

Din wakes to the sound of crying.

His son. His son is crying.

He slips the helmet on. He still hasn’t cleaned it yet and his head is still pounding. He sees the time in the lower left corner of the HUD.

He’s been asleep for fourteen hours.

The poor kid must be starving.

He knows he is.

The two of them eat an entire day’s worth of food in one meal. Too hungry and impatient to wait until the child is done eating and fallen back to sleep, Din places four servings of meat and vegetables on the table in front of the kid, all sliced up into bite-sized pieces. He lets the kid grab what he wants, stabs a few pieces at a time with his own fork, then turns around and lifts the helmet just enough to shove it into his mouth.

The plate is empty after ten minutes. The child and the Mandalorian sit at the table and stare at each other in the oncoming food coma, both trying to decide if they have room for any more. Din can’t remember the last time his belly was so full. He also comes to the conclusion that the child’s stomach is comprised of a subspace pocket for the fact that the kid hasn’t grown in the time they’ve been together despite the amount of food that Din pours into him.

The kid’s eyes slip closed. They’ve been awake for less than an hour and it’s time for bed again. Din has no complaints.

They sleep for another fourteen hours.

Once more, Din wakes up to the sound of his son’s cries.

His head is worse. The vision out of his left eye is nothing but a milky blur. The pain in his ribs restricts his breathing.

The dwindling supplies in the galley represent the last of his money. He’s broke. He’s just going to have to do what he’s always done and suck it up.

They’re not quite as hungry this time around, and clear out two servings between them in the same method as before. Din pulls himself up to the flight deck to check their position. They’ve drifted quite a bit, but they’re not lost and they’re not in anyone’s way, so it’s all good.

Back to bed.

Twelve hours later.

Din wakes to the baby in the bunk with him, sobbing. He’d kept it dark enough in there for this very reason, in the event that the kid got in there with him while he was sleeping without the helmet, so that wasn’t an issue. Even so, he’s sluggish to respond, laying there for a few minutes, listening to his son sniffle and cry before he realizes he has to get up and feed him.

Every movement hurts. He’s forced to keep his breaths shallow to keep his ribs from protesting. His back pinches at the slightest misstep. His left eye might be a little better; he can’t really tell. But his head still pounds.

He sets out another plate of meat and vegetables for the kid, but can’t bring himself to eat. His head will explode if he puts any kind of bite behind his jaw. The kid eats with gusto, so there’s that. Din folds his arms on the table and rests his head on them, listening as his son eats.

 _You are as its father_. The Armorer’s words ring in his head once more.

The pauldron with their clan signet still lay in the pile of armor that he still hasn’t cleaned. While the Armorer had declared them a clan, Din realizes that he’s not yet done his part.

He has not yet formally adopted the child as his own.

Despite never having the words spoken to him, never having been adopted into a clan himself, he still knows them. Everyone does.

When the kid is done eating, Din reaches out across the table to him with one hand, head still resting on his other arm. When he has the kid’s attention, the words slur out of him.

“ _Ni kyr'tayl gai sa'ad.” I know your name as my child_.

He’s forgotten that the child’s name is supposed to be spoken after the words.

He’s forgotten that he has not yet given his child a name to know him by.

His son looks at him, eyes huge and round, ears flat, knowing things aren’t right.

Back to bed.

Sixteen hours later.

The child is in the bunk with Din once more. Sobbing. _Wailing_.

Din won’t wake up.

* * *

The child is exhausted. The child is confused.

The child just can’t even, anymore.

His dreams are plagued with watching his protector refusing help as he dies. He doesn’t understand why his protector would rather die than stay with him. He remembers being furious about it. He remembers taking his fury out on the one who brought the fire.

Everyone seemed ok with it when he got angry at _that_ guy.

Had he killed the fire-bringer?

He thinks maybe he did.

But he’d saved everyone else and no one had yelled at him. In fact, he’d felt nothing but awe and gratitude until his world had gone black from exertion.

He understands that his protector is now his father. A subtle change, something that has been a truth in reality for a while now, only made official in name by someone whose authority his father respects. It doesn’t change much of anything for himself, but his father seems to think it is important.

The only thing of real importance now is that his father is not well.

Hasn’t been for the last few days. A steady degradation from his initial improvement.

His father has always been a mix of light and dark. Both pulsed within him, a constant battle. But now, the battle is dying down, a war of attrition fizzling out with frightening speed. Drifting away from a body that had been abused several times too many.

Broken bones poke where they shouldn’t. Blood gathers where it doesn’t belong. Air is squeezed away from where it should be.

His father has no voice. His father is growing very dim.

The child’s instincts to heal burn hot within him and he cries out because he doesn’t know what to fix first. These broken things are more complicated than what he has healed before and he sobs out of fear and frustration. The persistent motionlessness of his father in the face of his cries serve only to scare him further, so he throws caution to the wind, presses his tiny hands to the back of his father’s head, closes his eyes, and does the Magic Hand Thing.

The child does not quite understand what he does. All he knows is that something powerful flows through him. He shakes as it gathers around him, as his tiny body absorbs it, as it pushes through his arms and hands and out through his fingers into his father, where it goes and does its work, mends the hurt, fixes the worst of the damage, and dissipates.

Exhausted, the child sleeps.

Din wakes up five minutes later. He slips the helmet back on in the darkness of the bunk.

He’s surprised by two things. One, that the child is still zonked after sixteen hours of sleep. Two, that he no longer feels like death warmed over.

He’s so bewildered that it doesn’t occur to him to put the two together.

He is also starving. “Hey, _ad’ika_ , wanna eat?” He gives the child’s belly a light rub to see if he’ll wake up. “We have more frogs.” When even that doesn’t work, he leaves his son to rest while he goes up to the galley. A loose plan forms in his head while he eats and realizes that he feels well enough to work. When he’s done, he puts a call in to Karga about a job, then finally sets to work on cleaning up his armor.

The first piece he starts with is the helmet, while the kid is still asleep. He turns it over in his hands, running his thumb over the dents in the back, then pulling lines through the soot on the front with his fingers.

Without it, the detonation would have killed him instantly.

The Creed had saved him.

He cleans it, inside and out, amazed at how much blood is in there. The helmet alone takes half an hour. All the work is worth it when he puts it back on. It still doesn’t quite fit over the bump that remains on the back of his head, but it certainly smells better, and for that, he is grateful.

The second piece he works on is his right pauldron. The one with the Mudhorn signet.

 _You are a clan of two_.

He takes a deep breath. The idea doesn’t bother him as much as it did before. Doesn’t overwhelm him as much. They’re no longer being hunted. He can get steady work again. Karga owes him. He’ll pull this string hard – get an easy, high-paying bounty, get paid, set the ship to rights. Then, set his sights on finding his son’s people.

Din is a hunter. Finding people is what he does. Surely he can pick up the trail of enemy sorcerers. Surely the kind of people who can lift enormous beasts with their minds in their infancy have _left_ a trail.

He traces his thumb along the signet. For a few months short of a year, his primary objective, his _duty_ , has been to keep the kid safe. An obligation. Repaying the debt he owed the child for saving him from the beast welded large on his armor. Repaying the debt he owed the covert for covering their escape. Now, the covert is gone. His son is all he has left.

For all his lack of charm, he’s managed to talk Cara into helping him twice already. He thinks maybe he can talk her into it again when the occasion warrants it. Maybe she can help with the Kick Ass and Take Names Thing when he has his hands full with doing the Baby Thing.

Maybe he will take his time finding his son’s people.

He cleans the rest of his armor. Puts it all back on. He’s still not _quite_ right, but he’s a lot better.

Whole.

Ready.

Several hours later, his son stirs in the bunk, a grumpy burble sounding from the small space. Din picks him up, holding him in the crook of his arm. “Hey kiddo. You slept through dinner. Getting lazy on me?”

The kid’s eyes bug out for a split second, and he gives a low groan that Din swears carries the tone of, _You have got to be kidding me_.

**Author's Note:**

> I figured there was no way a little bit of bacta spray _completely fixed_ all of Din's injuries from the cannon battery blowing up in his face, and that it all _stayed_ fixed after that TIE fighter ride he took, so here we are.
> 
> Special thanks to SK for the beta! This story is vastly better as a result.
> 
> Stay healthy, everyone. May we all find our own versions of the Force to pull us through.


End file.
